President of Nintendo Shuntaro Furukawa recently stated that the company plans to make more 3DS franchises available on the Switch in order to increase the appeal of the Lite, which is the console’s new handheld-only model.
This is good news for those who prefer home consoles instead of handhelds.
It’s unlikely that the Lite would receive any exclusive games that wouldn’t also be on the original Switch model. This means that for some games that started on home consoles but have found their place in the handheld market in recent years, they could receive their first home console title after a long wait.
Some franchises have seen so many releases on handheld that it’s been years or even decades since they last appeared on a home console.
Here are five Nintendo-published series that last appeared on the 3DS and would return to their roots on a home console if they someday appear on the Switch.
Kid Icarus
Kid Icarus was once considered a dead franchise. The first game, simply titled Kid Icarus, appeared on the NES home console in 1986. It did not sell particularly well compared to other games at the time, though it gained somewhat of a cult following.
Perhaps Nintendo imagined that Kid Icarus would do better in the handheld market, so the next game in the series, Of Myth and Monsters, released on the Game Boy in 1991. After that, it took 21 years before the next game in the series released (Kid Icarus: Uprising on the 3DS in 2012), proving that the series was not actually dead.
With this confirmation that Nintendo is willing to bring back dormant franchises and the popularity of Pit in Super Smash Bros., it is very plausible that the next title could be released on the Switch. It would be interesting to see if it would return to traditional platforming gameplay or if it would instead take full advantage of the console’s hardware as a 3D shooter like Uprising.
A new Kid Icarus game would be the first to appear on a home console since the debut of the series in 1986.
